William Kent Krueger

From the Author

Every book in the Cork O'Connor series is different. From the nature of our most personal relationships, to the plight of the children our society abandons, to the sacrifices we make in the name of love, my books have dealt with issues important to me and worth, I believed, exploring. Red Knife, the eighth book in the series, has been by far the most difficult for me to write because it tackles a subject of such profound and confusing impact in our world: violence.

The genesis for the book was the horrific school shootings on the Red Lake Reservation in northwestern Minnesota in 2005, which left five children and two adults dead. It was, at that time, the worst such incident in our nation's history. But it wasn't the first fatal school shooting in Minnesota. Two years before that, in the small town of Cold Spring, a high school student shot one of his classmates to death.

I live in a state full of people probably not very different from those in your own. In Minnesota, we pride ourselves on our solid family values, on our probity, and on our good common sense. Things like school shootings aren't supposed to happen here. Yet I saw the reality in our midst: unspeakable violence and senseless death. And I couldn't help but wonder why.

Red Knife is not the story of the Red Lake shootings. I couldn't bring myself to trespass on the tragedy that affected so many in that close-knit, isolated community. It is, instead, the story of a value most of us cling to, though we generally deny it, one that continues to tear the world apart. Violence may be wrong, we tell ourselves, but sometimes it's a necessary evil. The problem is that no matter how we justify it, the end is abysmally the same. We set loose a beast that can't be controlled.

Red Knife is a terrific mystery, a powerful story, a great addition to the series, and a novel I'm proud to have written. But it is also, if I've done my job well, a book that will leave you profoundly disturbed.

Read an excerpt from Red Knife

 

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